


arsonist's lullabye

by cabinfever



Series: towards a burning sun [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Episode Ignis Spoilers, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 03:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13204692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinfever/pseuds/cabinfever
Summary: "Tell me about the Ring, Noct."Ignis tells the truth.





	arsonist's lullabye

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song of the same name by hozier.

Ignis knows how to cherish his peace.

Tonight, in his and Noct’s room in the Citadel, there’s plenty of it. The bed is warm enough, and plenty large enough for both of them. Rebuilding efforts are going well. Spring is looming towards them; any day now, the thaw will begin. The sun still shines, and the Scourge is gone.

Ignis is tired tonight. He’s lain awake for long enough that the day’s work is starting to drift out of his awareness. He’s fine with that; he’s done enough for the day. Everything is going well. For their first winter after the dawn, they’re surviving better than he’d expected. It’s, all told, a perfect feeling that he can hold onto as he drifts off to sleep.

And yet.

Noct twitches beside him and groans quietly. He’s half on top of Ignis as it is, so the movement is immediately noticeable.

Ignis turns his head and frowns.

Noct twitches again, this time more violently. And then his hand does the same, and he falls still. 

Ignis waits.

Noct makes a frustrated, soft sound that is entirely unlike his sleeping vocalizations. He shifts beside Ignis and adjusts himself so that he’s got his face pressed against Ignis’s chest and his arms wrapped firmly around his torso. Ignis chuckles and shifts to allow Noct to snake his arm down beneath the arch of his back. Noctis is notorious for clinging to Ignis in his sleep, and Ignis is all too happy to let him remain there. But there’s something definitely purposeful about the way he’s holding onto Ignis that has Ignis worried.

“Noct?” he asks, scarcely above a whisper. 

Noctis doesn’t reply with words, but his knuckles slide along Ignis’s ribcage, slowly descending them like a ladder. The rhythm is slow but purposeful. So he’s awake and he’s not trying to pretend that he’s asleep. At least this means he isn’t in one of his more volatile moods.

“Can’t sleep?” Ignis asks quietly, carding his fingers through Noct’s hair. “This is unlike you.”

Noct sighs a bit, pressing his head into Ignis’s hand. He’s quiet for a long while, and Ignis indulges him, quietly combing through the little tangles that sleep has tied in Noct’s hair. The easy rhythm of it nearly lulls Ignis into dozing, but he focuses on the feeling of his fingers working through Noct’s long hair. The warmth of Noct’s head is soothing to the touch. For a long while, Ignis almost forgets that something’s wrong.

“It’s nothing,” Noct finally mumbles, half-muffled in the bedsheets and Ignis’s chest. The gentle rumble of his voice is a concrete reminder of his presence, resonating down into Ignis’s very core. 

“Well, I certainly do think it’s something,” Ignis counters lightly.

Noctis merely murmurs something that might have been another denial, but it’s slurred with sleep that yet evades him, and besides, his face is pressed into the sheets. Ignis is good at understanding Noct’s sleepy mumbles, but he has his limits.

“Noct,” Ignis prompts. “It’s late.” He knows it is. It’d been late when they’d gone to bed, and late when Noct’s breathing had evened out, and some time had surely passed in between his fitful wakefulness. “It’s not healthy for the king to get less than his fair share of sleep.”

That makes Noct smile against his chest, palpably pleased. “That’s not what you always say,” he murmurs, sounding vaguely smug.

Ignis flicks at Noct’s earlobe. “Don’t change the subject,” he scolds.

“Ignis.”

“Insatiable thing,” Ignis mutters, smiling into the darkness. He resumes his careful ministrations, carefully tugging a few strands of hair into a simple braid. The plait is tiny and will probably come undone when Noct moves, but he’s pleased with it for now. “But truly, Noct.”

“It’s nothing.”

“I doubt it.”

“You doubt wrongly.”

“I felt you twitching. Usually, you sleep like the dead.”

Noctis’s arms tighten around his torso, just a bit. “It was a dream.”

Ignis sighs, twirling a lock of hair around his fingers. “One of the recurring ones?”

“Yeah.”

“Which?” He knows them all. Noct’s told him, or he can assume.

“The Ring.” Noct shudders. “Zegnautus.”

“When you put it on?” Ignis guesses. His left hand twitches. Just a bit.

“When I put it on. And when I used it. And-” Noct cuts himself off, running his knuckles along Ignis’s ribs again. “I don’t know. It’s in the past. The Ring’s gone.”

Ignis moves one of his hands from Noct’s hair to his face, questing across the worried creases in his brow. “Don’t stop on my account,” he urges quietly. “I can listen, if you’d like.”

Noctis shifts and half-shrugs against Ignis, or as much as he can with how closely he’s wrapped around him. He mumbles, “It’s hard to explain what it felt like.”

Ignis swallows. He runs his thumb along the gentle line of Noct’s cheekbone. And then, softly, he says, “Tell me about the Ring, Noct.”

“Burning,” Noct says, and his voice rasps as if in response to the memory of destruction. “Everywhere, burning.”

Ignis knows what he’s talking about. He knows, in bursts of decade-old memory, what Noctis looked like when he burned. He can’t help the way his fingers tense in response. “Everywhere?” he asks, though, because maybe talking about it will bring Noct some sort of peace.

Noct presses his face into Ignis’s chest, breathing in deeply. Something shudders on the inhale, though. “I was in the Crystal, so it wasn’t my - my body. It was  _ everything. _ ”

“All of you,” Ignis says, “burning.” For a moment, he almost stumbles and says  _ me. _

“Yeah.” There’s such defeat in his voice. Such weariness. Like he just wants to go back to sleep.

Ignis squeezes his eye shut against the sound of Noct’s pain. It’s too close to what he’s already known and what he’s already felt. They don’t talk about the Ring much; it’s always been a sensitive subject for Noct. Here, though, now, with Noct’s pain laid bare before him, he can’t help but remember-

“Noct, what if I-”

He stops.

Noctis raps out a faint rhythm on Ignis’s ribs. “If you what?”

Ignis isn’t even sure himself. He’s not sure how to begin this. He’s not sure what his mind wants him to say. Every reservation is screaming at him to stay silent, but somehow he knows that he can’t leave this topic unfinished. This is ten years overdue. “I-”

“What?” Noctis shifts a bit; his ear presses closer to Ignis’s skin. “Your heart is pounding, Ignis.”

All this training to be a perfect advisor, and he never did learn to control his heart. “I must confess something to you, Noctis.”

Noct asks, “Oh?”

“I haven’t been entirely honest with you.” Ignis turns his head to the side, wishing for the safety of his visor. “About my blindness.”

“Is it better?” Noctis asks, and he lifts his head from Ignis’s chest. The weight of his gaze falls immediately on Ignis’s face, intense for how tired he must be. There’s such hope in his voice that Ignis wants it to be true. He wants to just give Noct that victory.

He can’t.

Ignis shakes his head and says, “No.”

Noct deflates. “Oh.”

“I’m afraid my news relates more to the beginning of it all than to the end.” Ignis tries to formulate his thoughts into something that might lessen the blow. “I, ah-”

“Ignis?”

“You must understand, Noct-”

“Just tell me.”

Ignis, forgetting any and all pretenses of subtlety, blurts, “I put on the Ring, Noct.”

Noct freezes. His knuckles cease their absent tapping of some nameless music. And he says, with every indication of being perfectly awake, “What?”

“The Ring.” Ignis swallows around the knot of rising fear in his throat. “I wore it.”

Noctis sits up in a swift, decisive motion, disentangling himself from Ignis’s arms. In the moments following his departure, Ignis becomes all too aware of the cold air of the bedroom, and one of his hands hangs in midair, reaching out for a king that isn’t there. He sits up as well, wrapping his fingers in the bedsheet, holding tightly for some sort of control.

“You put it on,” Noct says. “You wore the Ring.”

“I’m sure you can imagine the results.” He swallows. “Everything was burning.” It really is the most apt way to describe it. LIke his veins were on fire. Like his eyes had been replaced by the Meteor. Like every part of him was so alive with fury that his body couldn’t hold it all.

“Burning,” Noct echoes. He sounds so far away. “And you lost your sight.”

“And I lost my sight.” Ignis draws his legs up towards his chest, leaning against the headboard to keep himself grounded. 

“All this time,” Noctis rasps, “and you said nothing. All this time, and you never told me how you got blinded.”

“You never asked, Noct.”

Noctis makes a wordless, frustrated sound, and his presence draws further away. The bed shifts and bounces with his departure, and then his footsteps whisper across the carpet. Ignis can imagine him crossing the room, shirtless and vulnerable, padding across their room to frown out at their city below. 

“Noct,” he tries quietly.

“Don’t.”

It’s not harsh enough to indicate any sort of fury. It’s not like Noct’s rejection of him back in Hammerhead. It’s just a deep, immeasurable sadness. 

Somehow, that hurts more.

“I never asked?” Noct repeats, strained on the edge of incredulity. “Gods, Ignis, of  _ course _ I never asked. Why would I want you to keep thinking about it, whatever it was?”

“You’re upset.”

“And you’re fuckin’ observant. Great job, Specs.”

“Noct.”

“Don’t try that with me.” Noct half-laughs, low and bitter. “Though I should have known.” He kicks at something, probably the dresser, and hisses as he makes contact. Ignis winces; he knows Noct’s feet are bare. “I mean, those scars are burn scars. I don’t know why I fooled myself into thinking it was something from when Altissia burned.” He makes another soft, disgusted sound, and this time there’s a bit more frustration there. “I must’ve known somehow.”

Ignis starts crawling slowly from his spot at the headboard, unfolding from where he’s huddled himself away from Noct’s wrath. “Noct, if you could let me explain-”

“Oh, I’ll let you.”

“Noct,” Ignis tries again, but a breath of air against his face tells him that Noctis has whipped further out of reach.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There’s so much I couldn’t say,” Ignis says. “I couldn’t burden you with that. Not so soon after Lady Lunafreya’s passing. And the blindness itself was enough.”

Noct taps at something hard - the window, maybe, or the mirror - and says, “Then it wouldn’t have been much of a jump for me to learn the truth. Things were miserable enough as they were.” He makes a thoughtful, quiet sound. “Share the load, you said. You weren’t kidding. You wore the Ring before I did.”

Ignis winces. So Noctis is putting it all together, looking back and realizing the reasons for everything he’d never understood. Gladio’s fury on the train, the fixation on the Ring - everything. “I did.”

“They all knew, didn’t they?” Noct asks. “Prompto and Gladio?”

“They knew,” Ignis confirms quietly, and Noctis nearly hisses. Ignis bows his head; he can’t bear knowing that he’s the one to make Noct feel so betrayed, so hurt.

“Why’d you even put it on?”

“Ardyn-”

“Where?” Noct’s voice has changed in volume; he’s facing Ignis now for sure, and there’s a strain in his voice that Ignis recognizes too well.

Ignis breathes out a sigh. “The altar,” he admits.

“The altar?”

“That’s where I found you.”

“You said-”

“I lied,” Ignis interrupts tersely.

The tension in the room snaps hot for a moment, and Ignis tastes iron and smoke. He almost flinches, but he knows this. This is like when Noct was younger and volatile, and when the armiger would come loose from his control in his anger, making everything taste like ozone and steel. Ignis has weathered this storm before; he knows Noctis, and he knows that Noct would never hurt him. Noctis finally says, low and rough, “Go on.”

“You were unconscious, and Lady Lunafreya was dead beside you. Ardyn arrived under an illusion, and he caught me by surprise.” Ignis winces at the memory of being knocked to the ground, and of a foot on his face, and of unconsciousness. “He tried-” He pauses. Composes himself. “He threatened to kill you.”

Noct mutters, “He wouldn’t have. He needed me.”

“He was convincing, Noct.” Nothing else could have brought panic rising in his chest quite like seeing a blade glinting in the air just inches from Noct’s pale throat. “And the Ring was in your hand.”

“Luna,” Noct rasps.

Ignis nods. “It fell from your hand. I fought back. And then-”

“You put it on.” There’s an air of bitter finality to the way he says it.

“And I fought Ardyn with the Ring.”

“And then?”

“And then you were  _ safe, _ Noct.” That was the point, right? Wasn’t that always the goal?

And there’s everything else, and the visions still starkly vivid long after the loss of his sight, and the way he thought he could stop it all.

And the way he’d been wrong, and how he’d felt the new sunlight and just  _ known- _

And the phoenix down in his fingers, and begging the gods and kings-

_ You gave me this power once. Give him back to me one more time. Please. Please. Please. _

He still thinks it was worth it.

But right now, he’s not sure if it’s worth the pain in Noct’s voice.

“Do you hate me for it?”

“No, Specs, gods.” Noctis lets out a long sigh. “Never that.”

“But?” Ignis presses, sensing the turn in Noct’s tone, like all the fight’s gone out of him.

“But,” Noctis says, and suddenly he’s getting closer. The bed dips as he approaches. Ignis resists the urge to shy away, but he finds himself turning his face away slightly, hiding his scars from Noct’s gaze. And the gaze is palpable, dark as he knows it is in their room; he has always been able to know when Noct’s eyes are on him. Noct finds him regardless, and his knuckles brush against Ignis’s collarbones first. His touch lingers there, and it takes a moment for Ignis to realize he’s asking for permission. Ignis nods, just a bit, and that’s enough for the touch to shift to his chin, holding it lightly and turning his face back towards Noctis. Ignis lets it happen. Noct continues, voice hushed, “But I’m sad. For you.”

“I feared as much,” Ignis says. He closes his right eye and tries not to imagine the pain in Noct’s eyes.

“This whole time,” Noctis murmurs, and his fingers alight on the left side of Ignis’s face, tracing delicately across the ragged scarring where the Lucii burned their favor into his flesh. “This whole time, Ignis, we had this in common.”

Ignis takes his time to breathe slowly, calming his anxious heart. He can tell that Noctis is using his right hand, the one that the Ring nearly destroyed. The one that burned. The touch brings an unnatural warmth to seep into his mutilated skin. It’s the wild magic the gods gave him, yes, but the gentle friction of their matching scars feels like home. It reminds him of how the armiger felt when he used to reach into it: warm and foreign and impossibly powerful.

It’s a remnant of the Ring’s fury as well, but he can’t bring himself to hate it.

“Maybe that’s why I couldn’t heal you,” Noctis says, and his fingers frame Ignis’s cheekbone again, curling up to swipe past his eyelashes. “Crystal wounds never leave.”

“No,” Ignis agrees quietly. Maybe if he’d been smarter, less rash - in another world, maybe he could have prevented all of this needless pain. He reaches up to take hold of Noct’s wrist, and his grip rasps across the scars there. No wounds ever leave, truly. “It’s a reminder, though.”

Noct says, “A reminder that you survived.”

“Indeed.”

“So you know, then,” Noctis says, “about the yearning.”

The yearning. Ignis had never thought about it with that word before, but...yes. That’s it. That’s the feeling. “The yearning,” he murmurs. “Yes, I know it.”

Noct shifts beside him. “The first time I used the Ring, I hated it. By the end-”

Ignis guesses, “You welcomed its power.”

“When you use it, and then you stop-”

“It’s not enough,” Ignis breathes. He flexes his left hand, imagining, not for the first time, the power of the Lucii. He’s not come close to forgetting the might of the kings, granted unto him for long enough to defend Noct from Ardyn. He can still remember how the magic had been more than he’d ever wielded and everything he’d ever wanted. The heady rush of phasing, blinking through space, half-warping in defense of his king. Of course, it had all been for Noct; everything is for Noct, and it had burned  _ so much,  _ but still-

He wants it. He wants to feel that way again.

“It’s never enough,” Noct sighs. The shifts tug around them, like he’s grabbed them in his fists in lieu of the power that shattered when he brought back the sun.

“It killed you,” Ignis notes. “It killed you, and still you miss it.”

Noctis makes a thoughtful little sound. “Well. It blinded you, and you do too.”

“I suppose neither of us are exactly known for our judgment in times of crisis.”

That’s what makes Noct laugh,  _ really  _ laugh, soft and amused and the most beautiful sound Ignis could hope to hear. “Don’t kid yourself. Your track record is still better than mine.”

“Ah,” Ignis counters lightly, thinking of rainwater in Altissia and the cold bloody misery of the throne room, “but when considering the consequences, I’d say my judgment has failed me on a grander scale.”

“You’re a regular disaster,” Noct drawls. “Satisfied?”

Ignis almost agrees, but he sombers again. And it’s not just the yearning this time. It’s just a bone-deep sadness that he can’t quite pinpoint the origin of. “No,” he says quietly, finding it hard to draw words from the void in his chest where magic and eyesight used to live.

“No?” Noct echoes, but then he lets out his breath in a low  _ whoosh  _ of weariness. “I guess not.”

Ignis rubs at the bridge of his nose, wishing once more for the comfort of glasses. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. He’s not sure what he’s apologizing for anymore.

“What do we do now?” Noct sounds so lost. So young.

“We keep going.” Isn’t that what they’ve always done?

Noctis is silent. He must be contemplating it, mulling it over. He’s still as stone, but still warm as a furnace, close as they are. Ignis almost could believe him to be petrified.

And then, softly,

“Ignis?”

“Yes?”

“Which hand?”

Wordlessly, Ignis offers up his left hand. He knows that there’s no scarring there where the Ring burned its power into his body, but he can imagine that Noct will see it and notice the damning evidence of his desperation. Noctis takes his hand with such gentleness that Ignis almost chokes on a sob of surprise, holding him captive. His skin is rough and almost too hot to bear, but Ignis welcomes the heat. It reminds him of magic he hasn’t felt in ages, and of the power they both crave and dread.

Noct kisses the hand carefully; his lips linger on the finger where the Ring once sat. Despite the warmth of the bed and Noct’s presence, Ignis shivers. 

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Noctis murmurs, breath ghosting across Ignis’s knuckles.

Ignis shakes his head. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“You’re impossible. You lost your sight for me.”

“You’re here,” Ignis says, “with me. Here, now. That’s enough for me.”

“And you’re happy?”

“Of course.” Of course he’d love to have his eyesight or a happier ending for them both, but this contentment that they’ve crafted for themselves in the new world - he loves it. He wouldn’t trade it.

Noctis leans into his side then, returning warmth to Ignis’s body once more. He’s silent for a few long moments, and Ignis allows him the time to think. Then Noct is stirred into motion once more, slow and careful and tender, pressing his forehead to Ignis’s temple. He breathes there for a second, breath warm against Ignis’s throat. “Thank you,” he whispers in Ignis’s ear, so quietly that not even the gods would hear, if they were listening. Just Ignis.

Ignis turns his head and presses a kiss to whatever part of Noct he reaches first: the gentle curve of his cheekbone this time, elegant and warm under his lips. He knows that Noct will understand the rest.

Noctis sighs. He wraps an arm around Ignis, tugging him closer. “C’mon,” he mutters, and he pushes Ignis down towards the pillows once more.

And just like that, he’s just Noct again. Weary, yes, and burdened by more than Ignis would ever want him to endure, but still Noct. Still his king. Still  _ his. _

It was worth it, Ignis thinks. It really was. For this. Here.

Forgiveness.

Ignis crawls back beneath the covers and dutifully holds them up for Noct, who slips in beside him with no uncertain amount of haste. “Get some rest, Your Majesty,” Ignis urges, and he wraps an arm around Noct’s shoulders.

Noctis snorts, but he scoots in close to Ignis anyway, tucking himself up against his chest, pillowed on his shoulder. “Ignis,” he half-scolds, but sleep is already coloring his words, turning him fond and taking any bite out of the reprimand. He presses a kiss to the skin at Ignis’s collarbone, breathes out a sigh, and tugs the sheets up higher, wrapping them in warmth once more.

Ignis smiles. “Good night, Noct.”

Neither of them dream again that night.


End file.
